The Top 10 Best Online Payment Gateway Providers in 2024

Payment gateways help businesses throughout the United States process transactions securely. This technology helps encrypt payment data and passes it to payment processors to complete transactions.

Fortunately, many payment gateway providers are available to small business owners. With so many choices at your fingertips, you might find it hard to decide which one is most suitable for your needs.

Features

• Advanced Fraud Detection Suite (AFDS)
• Customer Information Manager (CIM)
• Account updater for recurring payments
• Easy API integration
• PCI compliance

Pricing

Payment Gateway Only Plan

• Monthly Gateway Fee: $25 per month
• Per Transaction Fee: $.010
• Daily Batch Fee: $0.10

Payment Gateway + Payment Processing Plan (All-in-One)

• Monthly Gateway Fee: $25 per month
• Per Transaction Fee: 2.9% + $0.30

In addition to the above pricing options, you can also ask for custom quotes if you have more than $500k in annual revenue.

Features

• Advanced reporting
• Transaction management
• Allows you to connect multiple merchant accounts
• Take transactions via QR codes
• Unique tokenization feature

Pricing

Unfortunately, NMI does not list its pricing publicly. You will need to fill out a contact form to discuss pricing options for your business. This allows NMI to offer clients custom pricing based on revenue, business type, and other determining factors.

Features

• Accepts payments in more than 190 countries
• Partnered with more than 200 processors
• 24/7 merchant support is available
• Take transactions via QR codes
• Unique tokenization feature

Pricing

This is yet another payment gateway provider that requires you to contact its office to discuss pricing options that are relevant to your business. The reason that many payment gateway providers don’t list their pricing publicly is that they offer custom pricing depending on individual factors.

Features

• In-depth database
• Standard fraud detection
• Transaction reporting

Pricing

As with NMI, USAePay does not publicly list its pricing. As most of the services at NMI are omnichannel, there are likely custom packages you can access, depending on the services you need and the size of your business.

Features

• Integrates to merchant accounts, PayPal, Google Pay, and more
• Built-in fraud detection tools
• Allows for mobile and international payments

Pricing

At Braintree, the payment gateway charges are not publicly displayed. However, the company advertises a 2.59% + $0.49 per transaction fee for all cards and digital wallet payments. This is the full cost of their payment processing service and not the cost of standalone payment gateway services.

Features

• Accepts over 135 currencies
• Integrates with a wide range of extensions
• 24/7 merchant support via phone, chat, or email
• Fraud prevention tool

Pricing

While the standalone pricing for Stripe’s payment gateway is not publicly advertised, its all-in-one payment prices are:

• Standard In-Person Payment: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction

Stripe is one of the many payment companies that offer discounts for high-volume customers. You can contact the company directly for a custom quote.

Features

• Easy API integration
• Customizable checkout
• Transaction reporting
• Recurring payments

Pricing

PayPal offers two gateway solutions: Payflow Link and Payflow Pro. Payflow Link offers a PayPal-hosted checkout portal that benefits from security features, PCI compliance, and other advantages. Payflow Pro is the premium gateway option that includes unlimited customizations, language options, and more.

Gateway Subscriptions

• Payflow Link: $0.10 per transaction
• Payflow Pro: $0.10 per transaction + $25 per month

Additional Features

• Recurring Billing: $10 per month
• Advanced Fraud Protection: $0.05 per transaction + $10 per month
• Buyer Authentication: $0.10 per transaction + $10 per month

If you want to use PayPal for payment processing, additional fees are applicable.

Features

• Security features
• Easy-to-use portal
• Full integration with Square hardware

Pricing

While Square does not provide payment gateway pricing on a standalone basis, if you choose to work with Square for credit card processing, you will pay:

• Online Payments: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction

Features

• Advanced fraud prevention
• Works with Alexa
• Connects to thousands of websites

Pricing

While Amazon doesn’t advertise fees for standalone gateway payments, it does have publicly listed fees for Amazon Pay payment processing. Let’s explore the fee options below:

Web and Mobile Payments

• 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction + $0.40 authorization fee

Alexa Payments

• 4% + $0.30 per transaction + $0.40 authorization fee

There are additional fees applicable for cross-border transactions, chargebacks, and other types of charges.

Features

• Verification tools to confirm payments from customer
• Can be easily added to your current website

Pricing

The fees to use Apple Pay may depend on the platform you use. Social media apps, website platforms, or payment gateways will all charge their own fees to enable digital wallets.

Are there any free payment gateway options?

Unfortunately, payment gateways are not free. You need to make sure to partner with a company that is invested in security features and other technological benefits that will protect you from fraud. Choosing the cheapest option is not always the best choice.

While the costs of payment gateways can be set, there are times in which bundling a merchant account with a payment gateway may get you cheaper pricing on the gateway. It is best to speak with a merchant service provider about this.

Fraud Detection

Payment gateway providers offer tools that can help your business stop fraudulent transactions before they complete processing. These types of features include location verification, transaction velocity, and threshold settings.

So, why is fraud detection so important? Fraud plagues the online credit card transaction industry. In fact, in 2020, there were over 390,000 identity theft-related credit card fraud reports in the United States, according to an FTC study. Having a gateway that provides fraud prevention can help you protect your business from chargebacks and unexpected account closure.

Merchant Account Options

Working with a payment gateway company that can provide merchant account services in-house can be convenient. Also, working with a payment gateway provider compatible with a long list of merchant accounts can also be a benefit. Regardless, it’s better to have as many merchant account options at your disposal.

International Features

If you operate an eCommerce business, there’s a good chance you will sell to overseas clients. If so, you need a payment gateway provider that has international capabilities. While many payment gateway companies can accept payments from foreign cards, having a payment portal that can display foreign currencies and languages is convenient.

Developer Options

If you want to customize your payment gateway with branding and niche features, consider the developer options available to your business. Many payment gateways allow software developers to adjust components in the payment gateway to better integrate with individual websites and features.

Recurring Billing Features

With the subscription business industry predicted to grow past $1 trillion dollars by 2025, it’s no wonder that recurring billing tools are increasingly popular with business owners. If you want to develop a subscription business model or allow customers to automatically pay for future goods or services, recurring billing is an essential tool. This automation makes it easy to generate revenue over the long term.